Ñembi Guasu: Huge new conservation area in Bolivia’s Gran Chaco
In the Guaraní language spoken in some parts of South America, the words “Ñembi Guasu” mean “the great hideout” or “the great refuge.” Ñembi Guasu is also the name of…
Articles by Maria Salazar
Maria Angeles lives in Spain. She started translating for Mongabay in 2013 after finishing her postgraduate studies. She is now helping the team as the Translation Coordinator. Apart from her work for Mongabay, she works part-time as a translator and interpreter. Before joining the team, she worked as an English teacher and volunteered her time translating for different non-profits. She wants to contribute to make the world a better place to live in with her work
How climate change could throw Māori culture off-balance
Many hundreds of years ago, the first Polynesian boats arrived on the shores of what is now known as New Zealand. In the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, the…
Climate change may make hurricanes and cyclones deadlier, study finds
Weeks after the deadly cyclone Idai tore through Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the human toll is still being tallied. Entire communities remain submerged, more than a thousand people lost their…
Mercury poisoning chief among health problems facing Peru’s uncontacted tribes
This story originally appeared on Mongabay Latam as part of a special series on threats facing isolated indigenous peoples in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. Other stories in the series…
‘To save a forest you have to destroy a nicer one’: U.S. Marines target forest in Guam
Ritidian, a cliff-top refuge on the island of Guam, is one of the last places in the Pacific where you can find the mossy pillars and plunging crevices of a…
All you need is human feces: The strange world of dung beetle sampling
All you need to find out how many dung beetles survive in a damaged rainforest is a plastic cup, a length of string, a plate, a piece of muslin ……
A park in Bolivia bears the brunt of a plan to export electricity
The peacefulness of Monte Punku is disrupted every day at lunchtime, when many vehicles and hundreds of workers burst into this town located 188 kilometers (117 miles) from the city…
Deforested habitats leave migratory birds ill-prepared for journey north
To many in North America, the sound of birds among the early spring trees is the sound of renewal: after a long, cold winter, the colorful warblers and vocal thrushes…
Peru: Get to know the diverse wildlife of the cloud forests of Pampa Hermosa | VIDEOS
Biologist Sean McHugh, along with filmmaker and photographer Jasmina McKibben, recently traveled to the Colibri cloud forest in Peru’s Pampa Hermosa district in search of the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus).…
Dust and blood: Climate-induced conflict fuels migration, study finds
On Dec. 17, 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor named Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the confiscation of his produce. This act kicked off protests…
Fishery on the brink: The fight to save the Nassau grouper
In 1975, famed explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau traveled aboard his boat, the Calypso, in hopes of documenting one of nature’s most impressive underwater gatherings: the spawning of the Nassau…
Chilean law pits indigenous people against salmon industry
On Oct. 8 last year, Chile’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Huilliche-Chono indigenous people of Pu Wapi in their bid to take on management of 80 square kilometers…
Tear down the dams: New coalition strives to enshrine rights of orcas
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, triggering the First World War, Granny was out under the sea half a world away, catching salmon and communicating with her pod…
Latam Eco Review: Bolivia’s Batman and Peru’s birdy cave drawings
A biologist known as Bolivia’s Batman, ground zero for Amazon deforestation in Peru, and camera traps showing the bird species from ancient cave drawings were among the top stories from…
Latam Eco Review: Scandal rocks famed Easter Island park and a freshwater crab discovery
Scandal surrounds indigenous management of a major Easter Island protected area, a newly described freshwater crab species in Colombia, declines in Central America’s peccaries, and a man who can recognize…
Wildlife traffickers thrive on Guatemala’s murky border with Belize
The siege by wildlife traffickers in the forests on the border between Guatemala and Belize has become so intense that local environmentalists have resorted to extreme measures. Some under trees,…
Latam Eco Review: Mining bust in Peru, mining boom in Chile
A state of emergency against illegal mining in Peru, open season for new mining ports in Chile, drones vs rats in the Galápagos, and jaguar corridors in Colombia are among…
New map shows every forest matters in helping save the Javan leopard
The big cats of Java haven’t had it easy. First to vanish was the Sunda clouded leopard, a small species that today survives only on Borneo and Sumatra. Next to…
Latam Eco Review: Icon status for jaguars and fears over lithium mining
The environmental impact of the global demand for lithium and more jaguar protection in South America, plus profiles of five pioneering women in conservation science, and a newly discovered tree…
Latam Eco Review: Twilight for Darwin’s foxes, nightlife for jaguarundis
Jaguarundis caught on camera in Peru, hydropower choking Colombia’s Cauca River, and Darwin’s foxes on the brink of extinction were among the recent top stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay…
Nicaragua crisis takes an environmental toll with plunder of turtle eggs
Some 2,000 sea turtle nests were raided and at least six turtles killed in La Flor Wildlife Refuge on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast during the summer of 2018, according to a…
Grasshoppers: They come, they eat, they … pollinate?
Attitudes toward grasshoppers and other leggy insects were immortalized in popular culture with Disney Pixar’s 1998 animated hit “A Bug’s Life.” “They come, they eat, they leave,” a main character…
Latam Eco Review: ‘Andean ostrich’ gets some bling and Patagonia pumas protected
The most recent top stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, followed Romeo, the incredibly rare Bolivian frog who’s finally found a mate; puma protection in Patagonia National Park; and…
Exit the dragons: Mexico tackles trafficking of endangered lizards
They don’t fly, nor do they breathe fire from their mouths, but the “little dragons” of the Abronia genus are the latest craze on the pet reptile market. Far from…
Latam Eco Review: Seeing red over pink dolphins and flamingos
The most popular stories published recently by our Spanish-language news service, Mongabay Latam, featured endangered pink Amazon river dolphins, the world’s rarest flamingos, palm oil plantations in Nicaragua, impunity in…
For conservationists, crowdfunding sites raise both funds and awareness
The bill to train two dogs to guard a penguin colony: $18,000. Set up camera traps in one of the world’s most remote, understudied rainforests in New Guinea: $16,000. Build…
Latam Eco Review: Some whales may benefit from Japan’s whaling commission exit
More than 2,000 illegal mining sites in the Amazon, a wetland in Chile threatened by a highway extension, and a possible new monkey species in Peru were among the top…
Bringing the tapir back to Borneo
Forty thousand years ago — 28,000 years before the Neolithic Revolution saw hunter-gatherers settle down and farm, 36,000 before the first pyramids took shape, and 39,000 before the Norman conquest…
Latam Eco Review: Resistance, hope and camera traps
The recent top stories from Mongabay Latam, our Spanish-language service, include a call to cover climate change, the dangers of opposing Colombia’s largest hydropower plant, and the most inspiring conservation…
Environment and rights founder in the wake of Chinese funding in Bolivia
For Adamo Diego Cusi, a search for oil in the Bolivian Amazon by the Chinese-backed company BGP Bolivia has been a terrible ordeal. His work as coordinator of environmental and…
Special series
Forest trackers
- ‘Betting on impunity’: Brazilian Amazon under attack despite logging crackdown
- Indonesia struggles to restore peatlands as fires strangle national parks
- Marijuana cultivation whittling away Madagascar’s largest connected forest
- Illegal logging ‘mafia’ stripping hornbill habitat in Northeast India
Oceans
- Game changer? Antarctic ice melt related to tropical weather shifts: Study
- Dorsal de Nasca: Peru pledges to create a huge new marine reserve
- Science-backed policy boosts critically endangered Nassau grouper
- Vanishing sea ice in the Arctic could shake up seabird migrations
Amazon conservation
- World’s biggest trade deal in trouble over EU anger at Brazil deforestation
- Discovery of fish never recorded in the Amazon shows richness of Brazil’s Calha Norte
- Brazil’s indigenous hit especially hard by COVID-19: why so vulnerable?
- World’s top tapir expert prepares for unprecedented Amazon mission
Land rights and extractives
- Cook Islands to grant seabed mining exploration licenses within a year
- Deep-sea mining: An environmental solution or impending catastrophe?
- Locals stage latest fight against PNG mine dumping waste into sea
- Mining company pressing to enter Ecuador’s Los Cedros Protected Forest
Endangered environmentalists
- In Philippines’ Palawan, top cop linked to assault on environmental officer
- Deaths, arrests and protests as Philippines re-emerges from lockdown
- In Brazil, COVID-19 outbreak paves way for invasion of indigenous lands
- On anniversary of nun’s murder Amazon land rights activists at high risk
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
Conservation effectiveness
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
- On a wing and a prayer? Evidence for ways to conserve bats (commentary)
- Audio: The sounds of a rare New Zealand bird reintroduced to its native habitat
- Eavesdrop on forest sounds to effectively monitor biodiversity, researchers say
Southeast asian infrastructure
- Experts see environmental, social fallout in Indonesia’s infrastructure push
- Bornean farmers and fishers brace as a new port opens in their midst
- Indonesian levee project serves industry over community, study says
- Forest clearing proceeds for dam in Sumatra despite locals’ land claims
